A Community-Level Digital Health Readiness Index for the US

Can a census tract-level Digital Health Index (DHI), developed from public data, quantify community readiness for digital care beyond existing indices?In this cross-sectional study of 85 396 US census tracts, the DHI (21 socioeconomic, health care access, and digital connectivity indicators) was strongly correlated with established indices (ie, Social Vulnerability Index, Area Deprivation Index, and Digital Divide Index). However, the DHI prioritized different communities as having the lowest digital health readiness, with only 33% to 44% overlap among highest-decile tracts compared with comparator indices.This study found that the DHI provides a tract-level measure of digital health readiness to enable targeted support and to monitor health accessibility as digital health scales.

Corresponding Author: Saif Khairat, Carolina Health Informatics Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 428 Carrington Hall, CB 7460, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 (saif@unc.edu).

Link to the article in your story

We encourage you to link out to this article in your story using the link below. It includes an access token that will give free access to the article for your readers up to one year after publication. (The link will be live after the article publishes and embargo is lifted.)

Please see the article for additional information, including full author list, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

Need more information? Contact us.